


Foundation

by hannelore



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-04
Updated: 2014-04-04
Packaged: 2018-01-18 04:41:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1415464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannelore/pseuds/hannelore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione returns to Hogwarts while Harry and Ron never finish school, but the person she is looking for isn't the person she expected to find.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Foundation

**Author's Note:**

> For HP_Silencio 2013. Prompt: According to JKR interviews, Hermione returns to Hogwarts and sits her N.E.W.T.s while Harry and Ron never finish school. Why does she return? For whom? For what?
> 
> Thanks to my beta pauraque for encouragement and assistance, any remaining errors are my own.

No one could figure out how or why Hogwarts started to repair itself after the war.

Some rooms within the castle seemed newer than before. One staircase gleamed as if solid gold, not the dull gray it had once been. Stone by stone, the castle seemed to be repairing the damage from the battle, but it made its own particular choices. Some places, such as where the dead had fallen, there were gaping blasts as if death’s strike itself had seared the ground.

Hermione felt the library had always been her refuge, but it too seemed to be changing during the castle’s repairs. The Restricted Section had completely sealed itself off, unavailable even to the librarian. There was someone new in Madam Pince’s place, a young woman who ignored the murmur of student's voices scattered among the tables. Books kept disappearing and then reappearing among the shelves; Hermione could never find the right one she was looking for.

It was as if the library was rearranging itself, but was somehow confused and flustered. Hermione wondered if maybe it didn't approve of the lack of quiet. Maybe Madam Pince had known this too and it was why she had been so strict. Hermione felt as if they were inhabitants of someone else’s mind. Hogwarts shifted, mourned, destroyed and rebuilt. Hogwarts made its own judgments.

***

Hermione sat in the Quidditch bleachers long after everyone had left the match, squinting at the rings as twilight glinted off their curves. She had always been afraid of such heights, it was one of the reasons she never truly cared for flying, but this time she made herself sit at the very top so she had the clearest view. She had hoped coming to watch the match would have brought back some happy memory, reliving triumphs and victories, but she only came back to the questions and her doubts.

Hermione had convinced herself that coming back to Hogwarts was important for her education, something she felt she had lacked even though so many adults tried to convince her that life experiences had sufficiently educated her. But from the moment she returned to Hogwarts, she found herself looking for the 11-year-old girl who had burst into the castle so self-assured and smug. It distracted her constantly from her studies, trying to imagine what that girl would have been like had she never known Harry Potter.

The banners cracked as the wind whipped at their edges and she held herself tightly against the chill. Someone was walking toward the pitch, hands deep in their pockets, head low against the wind. They stopped just at the edge, their slight figure cutting a shadow against the grass.

Draco looked her way; he might have been looking up at those tall bleachers for someone, but by the way he suddenly straightened up, clearly he had not expected to see her. He turned away quickly, shuffling back up toward the castle.

***

One evening, Hagrid’s hut burst into monstrous red flames roaring and furious high above the thatched roof. The hut had stood unused for some time as the new gamekeeper preferred more habitable quarters inside the castle. The professors could only watch helplessly as the fiendfyre consumed the small hut, the crimson beasts circling it until only ashes remained.

As she gaped at the empty space, a spasm of sadness seized her throat. As a child she had found such comfort in that hut, the knowledge that she belonged at Hogwarts as much as any other witch even when others had scorned her.

Then, several Ashwinders emerged from the remains, a few regarding her with red eyes before darting off toward the Forbidden Forest. Slowly, grass started to sprout amid the ashes, as quickly as if she were watching months passing. The wind brushed over the new grass and it waved gently, just once, as if a giant hand had brushed over it. She felt the sorrow unclench in her throat and she released a deep breath, as if she had been holding it in for a very long time.

***

Everyone seemed to be getting used to these strange happenings at Hogwarts, it did not seem to matter to them whether one week the dungeons were suddenly filled with glittering fireflies or the next week the greenhouses were consumed with Devil's Snare. The former owlery was completely empty and the owls now taken over the former Divination classroom in the North Tower. Hermione found it was harder to find the glimpses of herself as a child, everything was changing and once she thought she, too, was starting to get used to it, the castle would change again.

The castle would often play tricks on them, she remembered this from her earlier years. But she wondered how much of it was trickery, such as a moving staircase, and how much of it was resourcefulness, such as the Room of Requirement. Hogwarts had its reasons.

***

One morning, Hermione saw three Muggle-born Slytherin first-years (she noticed the Sorting Hat had put more Muggle-born children in Slytherin this year than ever before) sitting outdoors with Draco. The three sat quietly and read, occasionally scratching some notes down upon their parchment. Draco had a similar book open upon his knee, but his gaze was elsewhere, up to the North Tower where the owls were flying in and out of their new home. He caught Hermione's glance, but she could not find any reason to walk over to him and the others, so she simply nodded quickly and turned away.

It occurred to her, belatedly, that she ought to have waited to see if he had nodded back at her.

***

Hermione lay in bed, listening to the clamour of yet another match going on at the pitch. She knew she ought to be studying, but she was content to put it off for yet another few hours. She heard some quiet noises, as if a mouse was underneath her bed.

Hermione couldn’t help feeling as if the castle felt as conflicted and confused as she did. It was trying to grow, to thrive, to expand, but it didn’t quite know how. The fire at Hagrid’s had seemed like the petulance of an impudent child, but she wondered why Hogwarts had used the potent, chaotic fire of a dark spell. The answer came to her later, quite by surprise. Hogwarts knew all the spells, it had all of magic at its disposal. Why wouldn’t it do whatever it chose?

When the noises under her bed continued, a bit louder this time. She leant over the side of the bed and peered under the wooden bed frame. Hermione couldn't see anything, but as she was about to push herself back up toward the bed, she noticed there were some marks in the bed frame that appeared to be initials. She heard the scratching sound again. She got down from her bed and pulled her trunk out from under it, scooting herself down underneath with her wand lit.

The small light revealed a myriad of initials, carved hearts with initials within them, dates and years. She marveled how she had never known about this when she had been in school before, and then it occurred to her that perhaps no one ever did it while she was around, thinking she would have scolded them for defacing school property. Hermione sighed. She probably would have.

Hermione pulled out of all of the trunks, shoes, books and other forgotten items from under every bed until she was quite dusty and sweaty from clambering under each one and looking around. There was some handwriting she thought she recognized, but most of it she didn't. She was about to push herself out from under last bed when she heard the scratching sound once more. Two pairs of initials suddenly carved themselves into the underside of the bed right above her head, a heart curling around them. A name that had just been there unfurled itself and disappeared.

Hermione stared in wonder for a moment, and then a sudden shiver crept up her spine. It was the castle, not the students, inscribing their memories, loves and hopes upon its furnishings. She ran her fingers over the new initials, expecting the letters to feel rough, but they felt as smooth as if they had been there for years.

***

Hermione had given up trying to study in the library. It was simply too noisy. She instead had settled herself in an unused room in the dungeons. She knew she ought to be outdoors, but she kept getting distracted. She would look around, thinking she saw someone or something. Here in the dungeon, the only natural light came from a few high windows that were smudged with ash. The shelves now empty of their former items and cobwebs lined the low ceiling,

She set down her quill and listened to the rain pelting against the windows. Hermione found herself seeking places in Hogwarts she had rarely visited before, finding rooms she never knew existed. Instead of going to usual haunts she had roamed as a student, she found herself wandering into places she had rarely been before. She had always thought the dungeons a grim, nasty place when she was younger, but now she found herself drawn to the dimly lit rooms. She felt like a giant in the small cramped hallways of the dungeons, they didn't seem quite so vast and echoing as the upper floors near the Gryffindor common room.

She saw someone walk quickly past the open doorway, then a hand pushed the door open a little wider as if to see who was inside.

Draco stared at her, perplexed. She looked at him briefly, then glanced around at the room. She certainly did seem out of place. Hermione shrugged helplessly.

Hermione knew suddenly in that moment that she simply wanted to be done with school. To put it all behind her, to put it all aside. Her younger self was no longer here, there was nothing else to find. The castle had been trying to tell her that all along. Hogwarts had suffered as its students had suffered. The castle was scarred, it would always be. So would she. She knew everything would be all right.

Draco glanced around the room, then back to her. His confusion softened into a questioning glance. She closed her books, put them into her bag and followed him out the door.

The dungeon room where she had just been sealed its doors, the grinding sound of rocks shifting, turning, reshaping.


End file.
